Escalation
by Bobmin356
Summary: Ignore the Muggle world at your peril! Albus Dumbledore learns a hard lesson


**Little Whining, Surrey...**

Harry huddled against the wall of the dark alley, he was wet, cold and very afraid.

Dudley was hunting him again.

He peeked out from behind the trash container, then pulled back when he spotted Dudley and his gang.

The gang stood at the mouth of the alley peering in, trying to spot Potter when a door banged open and two men stepped out.

"'ere now! Get away with you!" shouted one of the men.

Daunted by the adults, Dudley and his gang retreated and went to see if they could find Harry elsewhere.

"Bloody kids," muttered one of the men.

"Quit yer griping and come help me. The boss wants this place spotless for tomorrow," said the other.

"Aye, he's in a right panic that one. Bloody Inland Revenue coming to inspect the books and the plant. He doesn't want them to latch onto any reason to complain," replied the first man.

"Ain't it the truth now?" replied the second. "My cousin had them visit and ended up regretting it. They are like bulldogs, or shark with a scent o'blood in the water. They keep coming back and back until they find what they're looking for."

Harry blinked. _Inland Revenue?_ He thought, _they are those tax people Uncle Vernon is always complaining about._

It was a germ of an idea. Three times he had complained to someone about his treatment at home. He knew it was wrong, the school had held special sessions where they described what abuse was, and how he could safely report it without getting hurt again.

Three times he reported it, once to a teacher, once again to the school nurse, and finally to a policeman that had come to the school to give a talk about police dogs. All three times the adults seemed to care, and then they didn't. And he got hurt again, and for what? No one came to save him, no one cared. Not even the dog!

Maybe he was complaining about the wrong thing?

Harry waited a bit longer for the two men to leave, then he crawled out from behind the container. There was one person that would help him and he'd need her help to write the letter.

**Inland Revenue Office, Manchester, UK...**

Daisy Silverwood was a middle aged mail clerk who opened general mail to figure out which department it should be routed to. So when she opened the envelope that contained a letter in a childish scrawl she was rather surprised at it's contents.

After consulting with her immediate supervisor it was decided to send the letter on to the investigative branch as a precaution, there it would be read by an analyst who would make the determination if the child was in fact reporting a crime or not.

_Dear Sirs,_

_My uncle is doing bad things. Not only to me, but to other people as well. He says that he has to watch out for you and he hopes you never find out about him. _

_I'm not sure what anyone can do, but Miss Smith, the librarian here in town was nice enough to help me write you about him. Please send some policemen over to put him in jail._

_Harry Potter_

_ps. Oh, Miss Smith says you need to know more. I'm writing about Vernon Dursley of 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey._

"Frank! Here, have a look at this!"

Frank Kobold stepped over to his coworker's desk and quickly read the note he had been passed.

"Kids these days, I swear," he muttered.

"No, look!" replied Bob, pointing at his screen. "I ran a cross check on this Dursley character just as a lark. Look, he's pulling down 48k a year, and he's bought two cars in the last two years, both for more than 30k a pop."

Frank frowned. "He didn't sell one to buy the other? And who buys today when he can lease it?"

"There's no record of a sale and according to our records he still holds titles to both vehicles," replied Bob with a frown.

Frank leaned down and tapped a few keys at Bob's keyboard, then he studied the information for a moment. "Damn, this isn't right," he said.

Bob nodded.

Frank straightened up. "Flag the account and dispatch it to the auditors. Then maybe we should consider sending little Harry a note of thanks."

"I don't know if that's a good idea Frank, look at the note again," replied Bob uneasily.

Frank reread the note, then sighed, this was out of their jurisdiction. "You're probably right," he replied heavily. "Very well, it sounds like this Dursley character is a real piece, flag the account with a use caution notice."

Bob nodded and started typing at his keyboard. Within minutes a new file had been generated and it was sent into the electronic ether. A computer program would now assume handling the file and see it was routed appropriately.

**Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts, Escalation Level 0, Day 1...**

Albus Dumbledore settled back in his chair and poured himself a measure of fire whiskey. "That was a close one old friend," he said to the Phoenix sitting on his perch.

"I arrived just in time to obliviate an investigator who no doubt wanted to know about Harry," he added.

He smiled and reached for a lemon drop. Life was good and he had managed to avert a minor crisis without anyone knowing any better.

**Inland Revenue Office, Manchester, UK, Escalation Level 0, Day 10...**

The computer noted that the ticket had been in existence for nearly a week now and it had yet to be flagged complete. Fortunately it was programmed for such a condition and it reissued the ticket, routing it to the next available agent.

**Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts, Escalation Level 0, Day 12...**

Dumbledore shuffled back into his office, rather annoyed. He was in the middle of taking a bath when the wards at Privet Drive tripped again, causing him to rush there to take care of the situation.

This time it was two muggles and they had made it to the front door. They were confronting Vernon!

Amidst much shouting on Dursley's part, he managed to obliviate the two investigators, then he had to spend more time placating Dursley.

Finally he managed to make it back, but now his bath was cold and he no longer felt like indulging himself with a fresh bubble bath.

"The things I do for the Greater Good," he grumbled to himself.

**Inland Revenue Office, Manchester, UK, Escalation Level 1, Day 22...**

The computer noted that the ticket still wasn't resolved. New protocols kicked in and the ticket was reissued with a higher priority. Also a copy was sent to the center supervisor with a notice that this sort of unresolved issues was exactly what the ministry was trying to avoid.

**Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts, Escalation Level 1, Day 24...**

Dumbledore stumbled back into his office exhausted. First the wards tripped at Vernon Dursley's place of work, so he had to leave Fudge to quickly put a halt that problem. Only the problem was bigger than a simple obliviate could fix.

Two armed agents from Inland Revenue had been sent to Grunnings to bring Vernon in for questioning. Dumbledore actually arrived as they were cuffing him. Around them were nearly a dozen employees. And to make matters worse, when he stunned one of the agents, he received a bullet through his arm for the effort!

Madam Pomfrey was not pleased with his injury and it's clearly muggle origin. It took a lot of quick talking plus a wandless compulsion to stop her from contacting the Aurors like she should have. She was also angry because Dumbledore was magically exhausted having cast 3 stunners, 1 field healing charm and thirty obliviates, plus two apparations in less than an hour.

No sir, Dumbledore was not a happy camper at all. But it wasn't entirely for naught, he had managed to find out which particular agency wanted to talk to Vernon and he had apparated to the Inland Revenue field office where he obliviated all knowledge of Vernon Dursley from everyone there. Then he summoned all records pertaining to the case and banished them.

Sighing he sat and rested his eyes. It had been a long day, but another crisis had been adverted. He didn't even care that he had left Fudge to his own devices and the man was busy bringing Magical Britain to the brink of war with South Africa.

**Inland Revenue Office, Manchester, UK, Escalation Level 2, Day 32...**

The computer scanned the open files and halted process coming upon the open ticket for Vernon Dursley. This was beyond it's programming at this point, so it shunted the file up to the central office at the main ministry building. That computer accepted the file and immediately flagged it at the second highest escalation level, then it sent another notice to Internal Security that someone at one of the regional offices might be compromised.

Internal Security would soon discover one Albus Dumbledore in all his majesty on their internal CCTV tapes. It was clear that the man had done something to the local employees. An arrest on sight warrant was issued to local police stations along with photos. A second set of faxed photos would be sent to InterPol and the FBI in the hopes of identifying the old man in the images.

Meanwhile Vernon Dursley was to be placed under surveillance while the Crown built a case against him.

**Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts, Escalation Level 2, Day 36...**

Dumbledore crawled into his office, his fancy robes in tatters. He had been busy trying to convince South Africa not to invade when the ward triggered on Vernon Dursley again. He had left the meeting straight away, insulting the South African Ambassador in the process.

He appeared in an out of the way corner of Vernon's office to find the corpulent man struggling with four uniformed policemen, plus there were two other suited men in the room. He strode forward pulling his wand when he was tackled from behind.

He had grabbed Dursley by the hand and managed to apparate both of them out of the office, but that was only the beginning of his problems. Dursley was incensed and he tried to hit the Headmaster. Without his wand there was little he could do except try to dodge the blow. Unfortunately 300 year old men are not very good at dodging anything and Vernon had years of experience honing his skills at hitting a moving target.

Fortunately for Dumbledore Fawkes intervened, grabbing Vernon and dumping him in the lake, then the bird retrieved Dumbledore's wand, snatching it, right out of the hand of a chief inspector from CID.

Armed with his wand, and using the Potter invisibility cloak he returned to Vernon's office and proceeded to obliviate everyone he ran across. He also stole a camera. At least, he thought it was a camera, but it seemed to have no film that he could find.

The theft of that particular digital camera would result in next year's model containing a built in gps tracking device for all Police models.

With the agents sent on their way, Dumbledore fished Vernon out of the lake and calmed him down with an excessive use of calming charms and bribes, then he took him back to his office.

Now Dumbledore sat, breathing heavily, exhausted from his ordeal and somehow he'd have to figure out a way of paying off Dursley! Those blasted Goblins still denied him access to the Potter Vaults.

**Inland Revenue Main Office, London UK, Escalation Level 3, Day 42...**

The computer noticed the file was still not closed and did the electronic version of a frown, then it started spitting out orders in a dozen different directions.

All persons at 4 Privet Drive were to be detained for questioning.

All bank accounts, properties, stocks, bonds and securities owned by Vernon Dursley were to be seized.

An arrest warrant was issued for Vernon Dursley on the charges of Tax evasion, possible subverting of Government Agents, possible bribing of local officials, other charges pending. Suspect is considered dangerous.

**4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey...**

Albus Dumbledore knew something was beyond wrong when he arrived. He had wisely decided to be a little cautious and had arrived via the floo at that old squib's house. Arrabella Figg was just a piece of window dressing he had put in place in case someone questioned why Harry Potter had no one watching over him while he was growing up.

Stepping from Mrs. Figg's house and nearly tripping over a cat, he cursed under his breath and started walking down the street towards the Dursleys. Unfortunately he wasn't the only one walking in that direction. It seemed the whole neighborhood was!

He stopped and stared. "Oh crap," he muttered to himself.

"Really old man, crap barely does it justice," said a distinguished looking gentleman that moved to stand next to him. The man pointed to the two television vans. "Can you believe it? Already the media are here, we're probably being seen on 60 million television sets by now. By tomorrow these scenes will be shown around the world."

"But why?" stammered Dumbledore.

"Rumor has it that the tub o'lard was laundering money," piped up one old lady.

"I heard he was working for terrorists, they don't pull this kind of force out for a simple case of black money," added another.

Dumbledore sighed and wondered exactly how to approach this. Privet Drive was cordoned off and there had to be 50 policemen surrounding the house. Vernon was screaming obscenities from a second story window and waving a cricket bat.

"They say he's making bombs in his basement!" shouted one of the kids who ran by.

Dumbledore could see a group of policemen preparing themselves to storm the house. He reached for his wand, he had to stop this!

The distinguished gentlemen standing next to him quickly stepped closer and with a swift movement, stunned the headmaster with a blow to his stomach, then he pushed him to the floor and cuffed him. "We hoped you would show up to help you friend," he said calmly. "We'll be spending a lot of time together exploring why you keep showing up and how you've managed to subvert some of our best officers."

The man roughly pulled Dumbledore to his feet. As he did so he inadvertently stepped on Dumbledore's wand, snapping it. The breakage caused a brief flare of magic that went unnoticed by all but Dumbledore. He stared down at his precious, irreplaceable wand in astonishment. The death stick had finally died, destroyed by a muggle.

At 4 Privet Drive the Police and Inland Revenue officers had stormed the house and subdued both Vernon and Petunia, then they turned their attention back to the house and started searching, looking for financial records.

The search came to a temporary halt when a voice was heard from the cupboard under the stair. "Uncle Vernon? Please can I come out? I'm hungry, I'll be good, promise!"

**Epilogue...**

The computer at Inland Revenue went on to have a successfully long career before being replaced by a newer model in 2010. As happy as a computer can get, it was pleased to note the Dursley ticket had been finally resolved.

The obsolete computer was donated to a third world university where it worked for another 40 years before giving out.

The accidental burst of magic from the breaking of Elder Wand was ignored by the ministry of Magic. At the time of the burst, they were busy trying, and failing to fight off an invasion of 1000 Zulu shaman and warriors. After three days of heavy fighting, Cornelius Fudge surrendered the ministry to South Africa.

Cornelius was shipped off to work at a magical diamond mine and was never seen again.

Harry Potter never attended Hogwarts which had been closed by the South African occupying forces. He went to the Cape Town school of Magic where he excelled in Charms and Transfiguration.

Voldemort's one and only attempt to recover a body was thwarted by a shaman who forced the free floating spirit into the body of a skunk. The animal was then given to a petting zoo where it lived a few years before dying, and in the process, taking Voldemort's spirit with it.


End file.
